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#BPMCM15 two weeks out – Thoughts, myths and half-truths for a Monday morning.

Going back through the agenda and thinking of the sessions I attended, revisiting the conversations in the rooms and sidebars both in my head.

Thoughts

If you’re going to hold a conference with some terms – ‘BPM,’ ‘Case Management’ – in the title, you should probably spell their definitions out at the very beginning and (probably) repeatedly throughout. – Can’t count how many times in those two days I heard some variation of “I don’t even know what case management is,” including coming from an enterprise architect at my table Tuesday morning during the day’s opening keynotes. We – insiders – take what we know for granted a little bit too much methinks. Not everyone has our lens.

For case management, for now, I’m going to go with this –

It’s a bottom-up view, but the top-down right now is all vendors and their definitions are platform specific at this time.

Other’s opinions aside, people love Big Blue. The “Case Management – What are the Components” session on Tuesday before lunch had by far the biggest attendance of any session across the days’ sessions. People stacked up on the back wall. – Big Blue makes people feel warm and fuzzy. I’ll refrain from entering my own opinion on the matter for a bit yet.

Newbies are deer in the headlights. – The thought speaks for itself.

Myths

There is still a great divide between (traditional) IT and the business; IT is an inhibitor. – I don’t know why this old saw keeps getting dredged up, nor where those who are doing it come from, but the world I hang out in – the real world – this has not been a true statement for a long time. Political fiefdoms and ambitious machinations, from any quarter, on the other hand…

“Documenting as-is is good.” “Documenting as-is is bad.” – Another one that keeps getting thrashed about repeatedly. Here I will go Agile and say “to the necessary degree of understanding.” If it accomplishes some productive, tangible purpose do it.

Case management is better than traditional BPM. – No, it is not. Substantially more subtle and nuanced than the very wide net that opinion (and it IS an opinion), statement makes. Just wait, watch and see. <hee-hee>

Half-Truths

Agile is new and can solve a lot (all? depends upon how much Kool-Aid you drink) of your problems. – Well, “no,” it’s not really new, but the people who are still espousing it as a panacea and those who don’t know better still seem to keep coming back ’round year after year. Kind’a like the “BPM 101” crowd you see at conferences every year with a significant contingent still there wondering what it is and how it can help them, but I digress. Bottom line – methodology is good, execution is better. Way better.

Data scientists exist. – “Half-truths,” remember? Think about it.

So what’s the moral of your story Mr. Peabody?

A lot of people fly along at 20,000′ feet, but far more are in the trenches, on the ground. Few “traverse the cloud” between the two, fewer still do it well. We’re going to work on that.